By : James W Zubrick
Email: j.zubrick@hvcc.edu
Electronic instrumentation is becoming more and more common in the organic lab, which is both good and bad. The good part is that you’ll be able to analyze your products, or unknowns, much faster, and potentially with more accuracy than ever. The bad part is that you have to learn about how to use the instrumentation, and there are many different manufacturers of different models of the same instrument.
The usual textbook approach is to take a piece of equipment, say something like “This is a typical model,” and go on from there, trying to illustrate some very common principles. Only what if your equipment is different? Well, that’s where you’ll have to rely on your instructor to get you out of the woods. I’m going to pick out specific instruments as well. But at least now you won’t panic if the knobs and settings on yours are not quite the same.
With that said, I’d like to point out a few things about the discussions that follow.
1. If you just submit samples to be run on various instruments, as I did as an undergraduate, pay most attention to the sample preparation sections. Often they say not much more than “Don’t hand in a dirty sample,” but often that’s enough.
2. If you get to put the sample into the instruments yourself, sample introduction is just for you.
3. If you get to play with (in a no pejorative sense) the instrument settings, you’ll have to wade through the entire description.
You’ll notice I’ve refrained from calling these precision instruments “machines.” That’s because they are precision instruments, not machines — unless they don’t work.
